IVO OF PARIS. - Capuchin thinker and polemicist, b. in Paris ca. 1590, d. there in 1678. A lawyer of the Parisian bar, he entered the Order at the age of 30; ordained a priest in 1632, several times provincial definitor, he spent his life writing works.
In Les heureux successes de la piété (Paris 1632; 3rd ed., ibid. 1643) he defends the monastic life against the attacks of Bishop J.-P. Camus (v.) and colleagues; Louis XIII prevented its condemnation by the Sorbonne and the episcopate. To the conversion of the libertines he directed the Théologie naturelle (ibid. 1633; 4th ed., ibid. 1645) and L'Agent de Dieu dans le monde (ibid. 1656, 1658, 1661), making use of a scientific apologetics in keeping with the culture of the thinkers of the 16th century, which the new philosophy of Descartes soon caused to be forgotten; he also relies on feeling, or the intuitive knowledge of the spirit, foreshadowing Pascal, Fénelon, Chateaubriand. With the ascetical work Les morales chrétiennes (3 vols., ibid. 1638-41; 4th ed., ibid. 1645-48; German trans. Prague 1715 and 1720) he leads man, through the observance of his moral and social duties and with the help of Grace, up to mysticism, which he describes in Les progrès de l'amour divin (4 vols., Paris 1643; Latin trans.: Philosophia sacra, Salzburg 1678) and in the Conduite du religieux (Rennes 1653, Paris 1654). In the treatise De l'indifférence (ibid. 1638, 1640 and 1646 [?]), starting from the indifference of the libertines, he refutes that of the pseudo-mystics and describes the authentic indifference of contemplative souls. In the Digestum sapientiae (ibid. 1648; 2nd ed., 3 vols., ibid. 1659-61; the 4th vol., Lyon 1672) and in the Jus naturale rebus creatis a Deo constitutum (Paris 1658) he sets out his philosophy of a Platonic tendency, drawing inspiration from Raymond Lull and above all from Marsilio Ficino; in it he gives a complete vision of the universe, which had a certain influence on Leibniz himself.
He fought Jansenism in the Des misericordes de Dieu (Paris 1645, Liège 1647, Louvain 1675) against La fréquente Communion of A. Arnaud, whose doctrinal cornerstones he refuted in the Très humbles remonstrances présentées à la reine (Paris 1654). He treats of freedom against Jansenistic moral necessity in the De la nécessité (ibid. 1653). He took an interest in education, art and politics in Le gentilhomme chrétien (ibid. 1666) and in the posthumous Le magistrat chrétien* (ibid. 1688). He published various other works; recent scholars of the French 17th century have in part rehabilitated this fine representative of devout humanism.